McMullan apology on PBS

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Labor's finance spokesman Bob McMullan did a mea culpa yesterday, saying he'd "obviously overstated the case" when he insisted two years ago Labor would "not ever" support the Government's higher pharmaceutical charges. "That was silly of me," he said.

He again promised that a Labor government would review the increase, passed last week with ALP backing. "It'll be as little as we can make it," Mr McMullan said. "But we've got to make the pharmaceutical benefits scheme sustainable."

Labor had "a whole lot of health policy measures" to announce, he said on Channel Ten's Meet the Press, but he would not be seeking savings from the 30 per cent health insurance rebate, which Labor has said it will review but not abolish.

The Opposition's running total of savings stood at $9 billion (excluding more than $1 billion from supporting the PBS) and its tax policy was "pretty well clear", he said.

He did not think it would be a long time before the tax policy was released, "but the timing is out of my hands".

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Opposition Leader Mark Latham defended himself against criticism that he'd been missing publicly and left it to Mr McMullan to defend the PBS change.

"I've spoken about this in the Parliament and it's standard practice for shadow ministers to brief the media about the decisions for which they're responsible," Mr Latham said.

• Opposition financial services spokesman Stephen Conroy said yesterday that Labor was still making adjustments to its tax package.

"The Charter of Budget Honesty requires us to give it to the Treasury to be costed - we will be doing that," Senator Conroy told the Seven Network. "It will be independently costed along the way."